Former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted on Friday that there is no question that President Trump “committed impeachable crimes” and suggested that the only thing standing between the president and the wrath of the law is his Republican allies.
Clinton has not hidden her opinion throughout the seven public impeachment hearings that the House Intelligence Committee has held over the course of the last two weeks. She wrapped up the week with some final thoughts, declaring that Trump “committed an impeachable offense.”
“The question is not whether Trump has committed impeachable crimes. He has,” she wrote. “The question is whether Republicans in Congress will affirm that an American president is not above the law”:
Despite Clinton’s assertion, none of the witnesses over the last two weeks were able to definitively show that the president committed an impeachable offense.
While the vast majority of witnesses were testifying based on hearsay, Democrats overwhelmingly declared victory after Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who spoke to the president, muttered the words “quid pro quo.” However, when pressed, Sondland said it was his presumption that a phone call, meeting, and aid were contingent upon an investigation into the 2016 election and Burisma and stated that Trump explicitly told him, “I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.”
Sondland said:
I finally called the president … I believe I just asked him an open-ended question, Mr. Chairman. What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories and this and that. What do you want?
It was a very short abrupt conversation, he was not in a good mood, and he just said, “I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing,” something to that effect.
He “never told me directly that the aid was conditioned,” Sondland said, telling Democrat counsel Daniel Goldman that no one told him aid was tied to anything.
“I was presuming it was,” he said.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) emphasized that point during the hearing:
On page 14 you said this: Was there a quid pro quo – today’s, your opening statement – as I testified previously with regard to requested White House call, White House meeting is yes that there needed to be a public statement from President Zelensky. When the chairman asked you about the security assistance dollars you said there needed to be a public announcement from Zelensky, so I’m asking you a simple question. When did that happen?
“It never did,” Sondland said.
“They got the call July 25. The got the meeting – not in the White House but in New York – on September 25. They got the money on September 11,” Jordan continued:
I mean, you got all three of them wrong. They get the call, they get the meeting, they get the money. It’s not 2+2. It’s 0-3. I mean I’ve never seen anything like this. And you told Mr. Castor that the president never told you that the announcement had to happen to get anything. In fact. He didn’t just not tell you that, he explicitly said the opposite. The gentlemen from Texas just read it. You said to the President of the United States, “What do you want from Ukraine?” The President: “I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. I want Zelenksy to do the right thing. I want him to so what he ran on.
This is far from the first time Clinton has remarked on the impeachment inquiry’s developments.
Last week, she accused Trump of engaging in “witness intimidation” after the president tweeted about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch during her testimony – something she would not have known if House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) refrained from reading the tweets aloud during the hearing:
On Wednesday, Clinton praised the individuals who worked to win a House majority for Democrats, because that ultimately made the impeachment hearings possible:
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox News’s The Story on Thursday that, even though the president does not believe the House has a basis to move forward with impeachment, he would invite a trial in the Senate in hopes of calling witnesses such as Schiff, the so-called “whistleblower,” and the Bidens.
“And he says, if the House moves forward with this sham, and they continue to push these fake, illegitimate proceedings onto the American people, then he wants it to go to the Senate, and he wants a trial,” Gidley said.
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